Fierce is god impenitrable
glad glad glad there is a
Fire up the street called Heaven
There is

A woman wearing only one shoe who is taking
an exhaustive drag of her smoke in the
early morning where birds are
still heard in
                                    !!!!!!cities

A hymnal a
heralded nest of savory berries A quartzstone is trapped in time a myth is made more ridiculous when proven real

Continents wither where the flies glue their

regal canvases on downtrodden earth (missing Pangea)

Or smiles everlasting smiles meanwhile
(Blonde tongues wearing fashioned wigs)
in constant state of beguilement

The Neanderthalic stones will be unforgiving to the REVEREND who has collapsed through his song the song of lead pipedream fantasies of sexless dogma YEAH monkhood yeah Ghat burning holes in twilit schools of thought or no thought at all


I can

hear the collective Faerie outcry that silence has presented itself HEAvier to their wicked careless bodies ok I am innocent of love I love your innocent love I am careless(of their wicked careless bodies)
ResemblingA swans actual duty to die
a swan lies a swan lay
like an even more beautiful swan
on even more beautiful swanny grass
To die by swanlightSUN and MOON white like the swan where we soon listen closely to the swansong a celestialLOVELY
rhythm of gilded forest (((((orchestrals
The swan leaves us in happiness of bright groggy light
                         O (of which in chaos of day I am again innocent)


     The Reverend's desperate gaspings into a  micro -phone for a macro - cosmic prayer idol o idol where is your capability for worship idol o where is my chinstrap o idol where is ****** youth or the romanticized eternal SUMMERS I sing
     O bible O cloudland O where is your telephone operator is they deceased by their own fragrant holines? The church
     Watches the Reverend neverend his television routine of clamoring death odes
     Watches his senility come like an implorical shadow outline watches a demon lick its dreamless lips beyond the periphery of godless dreams
     Watches
     Reverend lose his sight in anInstant
     HeWAILSheWAILSandWAILS can you hear it Thomas De Quincey can you hear the sandbeaches ringing more clearly than the ChurchBells or the ****** Pagoda for torture /

his soul is to sleep in the (mossy)mountain the fire of the (forever)street called HEAVEN the mountain column supporting the sky(swan)gate of heavenHeaven!welcome

   to:

I want to be just like Pan,
dance wildly in the woods,
hang with nymphs,
make love
& have fun.

She is dressed like an unmarked bottle of tequila
Smuggled and homemade

There's some dirt on your cheek
Leave it there
Out here looks good on you

There is the crunch and scrape
of dirt in the threading
little pebbles against my teeth

I spit them out onto a smooth portion of cement
Pray that in the blurr
I can read divinity
in the way the dirt falls

Another swig and I am heart heavy
Like scrap metal
and old houses
like fat sacks of glowing mercy

She smiles like a pipedream
of twisted shining copper

She speaks in head spin
This is what it feels like when god talks to you
without killing you

She says
You are not in the business of
feeling sorry for yourself

Name the year

This is the year of the shedding of weight
The year of the cutting in half
The year of shaking the dust
From the fragile places
Wiping the dirt from the threading
even if you have to use your own mouth
so you can finally seal yourself
without worrying if it will hurt this time

The year of hotmess
And young love
The year of leaving
This is the year
Not where everything is lost
But a new lightness is gained
In the way you can walk away

So pull your heart out from the rubble
of the past

This is the year of being charming
The year of fist fights and no regrets
The year where you finally understand
what it means to be honest

This is the year of shaking the dust

A broken shell, a living hell, and all I'm left with now is my regret.

Better days ahead were a pipedream after our relationship crumbled. Countless arguments. Disagreements. Every day! For my life, I can't believe we stayed together as long as we did. God knows I didn't want her to leave me. How much longer must I wrestle with these painful memories?

I just feel regret, unspoken, I just feel the pain; since she left, my life has been a broken shell, a living hell — I can't believe I let her go; it was foolish pride before the fall the day she left when I lost all — I should have held her closer, I should have made her see the feelings I have for her, what she means to me; I didn't say I love her or beg her to stay, instead, I stood in silence and watched her walk away, and all I'm left with now is my regret.

Justification is an exercise in futility. Knowing what I could have and should have done leaves an inextricable switchblade in my soul. Love's lessons learned too late — love's loss too great.

Misting eyes beseech as memories replay in my head, but they're too painful, and I feel dead. No joy to be found. Oh well, my self-imposed hell. Painful memories open like an oubliette under my feet, plunging me lost and languishing in isolation's labyrinth. Questions left unanswered, decaying in the debris fields of "what if.”

Reflection can be a catharsis for the soul, but it can also rip a hole in it, and soon reality roars from guilt's bottomless pit to devour all hope. Sometimes despair is mitigated by occasional reminders of us. Thoughts lingering on happier times, blessed moments mine to treasure. Until the damnable loop of regret dominates to decimate any respite of joy. Vanishing expectations. Weeping willow's silent wail. Xerox memories fade with time.

Years have passed, and my thoughts continue to haunt me over what we could have had. Zero-sum game — all I'm left with now is my regret.




Mark Toney ©️ 2023

*       *       *

April 22, 2023

I hope you found the above fictional prose poem interesting. I wrote it in response to a writing challenge I heard about.  Write a 26-sentence short story (or prose poem). Each sentence must begin with the alphabet's sequential letters starting with A through Z. One sentence must be 100 words long, and another sentence only one word. Would you like to try it?

I remember so much that I wish I could forget.  

This is a poem about Psalm 23 choked out through tears.  
This is a poem about astro vans and
                                      tractor lawn mowers and
                                      driveway car washes and
                                      small garden spaces and
                                      digger wasps and
                                      three wolves and a moon.  

This is about the Backstreet Boys and
                              Def Leppard and
                              Kenny Chesney.  
“Dreams” by The Cranberries.

About waterparks and
            swim lessons and
            the smell of chlorine.  
Fresh cut grass.  Bonfire smoke permeating through the house.  

Grey diamond tiles on white linoleum.  
                                                                Hands clenched down on washcloths.

Muddled.  It’s all so muddled.  Stuck beneath
                                                           brain­ matter and cerebrospinal fluid and
                                                              down, down, down beneath the lake.  
How can I dig it out while also digging it down deeper?  
I want to forget it all.  No memory, no pain, no ******* problem.  

Goldfish life: a pipedream.

thousands of lost souls screaming at the dark
that lives inside their minds
and wishing someone could draw them out
of their lonely heads and this broken time

even the simplest action becomes an ordeal
a herculean task to those who are
living perpetually in fear of all
the things they see and everything they are

if you have never lost your senses
to sheer paralysis over food, or going out
you cannot understand how terrifying
life can be, or how it drags so many down

we live in the depths, an exclusive hades
this circle of hell exists on earth
heaven and stars become a rich pipedream
we lose all idea of love and elusive self worth

an illness so isolated, this disease
god I wish something was wrong with my body
that could show what makes me so insane
instead of a perfectionist need to be lovely

an innate detachment from others
the people who know how to exist
in happiness, who dream of real things
who when they die will truly be missed

I am not here, not real, I wish I was
not a shadow girl, the ghost at the bar
lost in a lonely heart and finding salvation
wielding a blade and creating ugly scars

making pain replace love and true feeling
so that everything translates to fat
and I can't possibly enjoy anything
and open up, I'll never be like that

withdrawal and dissolution reigns until
this girl gets help, gets locked up
gets shown all the ways in which she is sick
god, I wish I had never grown up

*© Tara India.

I guess one of these days I am going to thank you.
I am not gonna hurt as much as I do right now,
Not gonna want to just give up on people completely.
I won’t sit hear and wish you were here,
I won’t feel so alone without you here.
One day, I am not going to worry about you dying.
Or laying somewhere hurt, losing control.
One of these days, I may not even think about you at all.
There will come a time when the pain won’t be so fresh.
Although I feel that I am never gonna feel secure.
It is not just you and it is not just your fault.
That I feel so repulsive, undesirable only a mere annoyance.
Because for once I just wanted to be beautiful enough,
Smart enough, fun enough.
For once I just wanted to be enough.
If only the damage done before you didn’t destroy me.
Didn’t just leave me here too broken for anyone to handle.  
For now I just don’t think I will ever be good enough,
sane enough, desirable enough, attractive enough, clean enough.
For now I assume I will never be happy enough.
It is funny how only a day or two ago,
we sat in a room with friends.
They said countless times how they wish they had a girlfriend like me.
Isn’t it funny, that you have me and I am the absolute last thing you want.

One day soon I am gonna start moving on,
Someone else will make me smile.
Someone else will make me giggle when they aren’t there,
Just like you did.
One day soon maybe I will understand
Why you hit on every one of my friends in a room,
Why you flirt with every girl you see.
Except for me of course,
I am hoping that after you are gone,
So will the way you can make me feel invisible
In a room, watching you try to be with anyone but me.
Maybe one day I will be able to feel like I am the only one.
The only one that someone wants,
The way I had started to feel about you.
Maybe one day I am gonna be the first thing that you see when in a room.
Maybe one day you will want me back,
You will regret what you said,
Or you will regret what you did.
Or what you didn’t do .

In time, I will move on and I will wish you away.
As hard as I wish you were here trying for me now.

One day I will be okay, or I won’t be
One day you will be okay, or you won’t be.
Maybe tomorrow you will sober up and you will apologize.
You will come here and you will actually try.
maybe I am just holding onto a pipedream,
but don’t worry though I am letting you go.
And the only thing that would change the ending where we part ways is you.
I know that this is far fetched and I am in a fairy tale land.
Right now though, just to not have my self esteem crumble
and to not have my heart break, and to not wish myself into someone else.
I will hold on the to the fairy tale.
And I will hold onto the knowledge that one day,
you will just be a memory.

There's a saying that goes like a pipedream
Solitary Scream in your mouth
In your bedroom without a doubt
You're convulsing conversations
Time's up
How about your hold on my hand?
How about I give up my will to you always
And then we can hold each others' cheek
Your hair is so nice to my finger gaps
Pray deeply
I don't know much about out loud
But it's the feeling that's real anyhow
How about you go this way
How about we stay the same
The room is closing as the door opens
And nothing has changed
We're still living in a really big cage
I scream as half my body is out the window
And music is playing out the stereo
How about you hold me so I don't fall
How about you accept this ride I'm offering you
I'm learning how to bike
And you're beside me
Suddenly it's reckless nature taking over
The legs are kicking
Pedal down, pedal down
The stationary bike
Taught me better than you did
But nothing taught me a better lesson than you did
The bike is washed up
Rusty, dusty, crusty
And still my heart won't give out
Help yourself until then